{"id":1915,"date":"2009-04-22T09:47:42","date_gmt":"2009-04-22T13:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/retailprophet.com\/blog\/?p=59"},"modified":"2009-04-22T09:47:42","modified_gmt":"2009-04-22T13:47:42","slug":"will-virtual-retail-get-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Virtual Retail Get Real?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_UQTwH-FU3y4\/Se5qOcfO73I\/AAAAAAAAADQ\/DgWvK8iCrgo\/s1600-h\/VIRTUAL+SHOP.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327312205623783282\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; cursor: hand; border: 0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/VIRTUAL+SHOP.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"162\" height=\"122\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been taking a really hard look at the idea of virtual retail over the past couple of weeks, trying to validate it as a <a href=\"http:\/\/retailprophet.com\/execsummary.html\">trend<\/a>. While there&#8217;s no shortage of articles discussing it, most are speculative and somewhat non-committal as to if and when it could take an honest chunk out of e-com or traditional retail.<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, it is hard to put a finger on it. On one hand, you have the failure of <em>Second Life <\/em>to successfully incorporate e-com into its virtual world but then you have stories like the one in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brandweek.com\/bw\/content_display\/news-and-features\/direct\/e3i27945265e8c954251e65ca9f07388ca1\">Brand Week<\/a>, suggesting that VR is becoming an effective an economical alternative to in-store consumer testing at Wal Mart.<\/p>\n<p>Three things seem clear to me; one, the technology itself is infinitely better today than it was even a couple of years ago, explaining why companies like Wal Mart feel comfortable enough to test consumer response with it. Two, we have an entire generation of power consumers coming of age that grew up with an X-Box controller in their hands. It makes perfect sense to me that gaming and shopping will become seamless experiences for consumers-especially teens. Imagine the fun you could have by combining <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/ps2\/action\/gta4\/index.html\">Grand Theft Auto <\/a>and visit to your local Target store&#8230;virtually that is. Finally, most e-com is boring. I&#8217;m not saying it doesn&#8217;t work- of course it does, I&#8217;m just saying it&#8217;s not always the most engaging experience.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to keep an eye on it but I&#8217;d like to know what you think. Will virtual retail will be a serious economic reality in the next ten years?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is all the hype about virtual retailing for real?  Will consumers shop in the virtual world and if so, when?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1],"tags":[30,25,31,33],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-uncategorized","tag-e-com","tag-retail-sales","tag-retail-trends","tag-virtual-retail"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Will Virtual Retail Get Real? | Retail Prophet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Will Virtual Retail Get Real? | Retail Prophet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is all the hype about virtual retailing for real? Will consumers shop in the virtual world and if so, when?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Retail Prophet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-22T13:47:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/VIRTUAL+SHOP.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Doug Stephens\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Doug Stephens\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/\",\"name\":\"Will Virtual Retail Get Real? | Retail Prophet\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/VIRTUAL+SHOP.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-04-22T13:47:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-04-22T13:47:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c61e8def90993f7f05ebee505a9da467\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/VIRTUAL+SHOP.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/VIRTUAL+SHOP.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Will Virtual Retail Get Real?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/\",\"name\":\"Retail Prophet\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c61e8def90993f7f05ebee505a9da467\",\"name\":\"Doug Stephens\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Will Virtual Retail Get Real? | Retail Prophet","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2009\/04\/22\/will-virtual-retail-get-real\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Will Virtual Retail Get Real? | Retail Prophet","og_description":"Is all the hype about virtual retailing for real? 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